Today Banisadr pubished an article in some American media including
Christian Science Monitor & Huffington post. Here is the original version
of the article which is more extended hence more comprehensive:
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Global-Viewpoint/2013/1004/Expect-a-nuclear-deal-with-Iran-s-Rouhani-but-not-normal-ties-with-US
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/abolhassan-banisadr/after-rouhanis-un-speech-_b_4043645.html?utm_hp_ref=world
Since the 1979 Iranian revolution, the Iranian regime’s policy towards the US has been based on two principles: secret compromise and open confrontation. This began with the occupation of the American Embassy and subsequent hostage-taking in 1979, events which turned Iran-US relations into a defining factor of the regime’s domestic and international policies. At the time, with Khomeini’s consent, I and Jimmy Carter undersigned a scenario that would release the hostages. It was Khomeini himself who torpedoed the agreement in order to secretly negotiate with Ronald Reagan’s administration and to make sure Jimmy Carter would lose the election. This deal later became known as the ‘October Surprise’. While open confrontation continued on the surface, the countries’ secret relations led to another scandal in 1986, which came to be known as the ‘Iran-Contra’ affair.
Still, at times the Iranian regime had seriously tried to improve relations with the US. In fact, the dominant faction within the regime, which was led by Rafsanjani and Khamenei, were so keen to receive the American government’s support that according to the memoir of Ronald Reagan’s National Security Advisor, McFarlane, they suggested poisoning Khomeini in return.
On another occasion in 1995, Rafsanjani’s government suggested a deal to Bill Clinton’s government in which they would provide him with documents regarding the October Surprise, but Clinton refused. The last serious attempt before Rouhani’s election was made in 2003, when a comprehensive plan was developed by Mohammad Javad Zarif, the current foreign minister, Sadegh Kharazi, Iran’s former ambassador in France. This was approved by Khamenei and Khatami, the president at the time, who through a Swiss ambassador in Tehran presented Bush’s government with a comprehensive plan for dialogue and reaching agreement about all the issues which related to the two countries. Bush, who was still intoxicated by his initial success in Afghanistan and Iraq, disregard the letter.
So the current attempt is the latest serious one by the Iranian regime made to receive the US’s guarantee that it will not follow a policy of regime change. The regime’s attempt to build an atomic bomb, which according to a CIA report ended in 2003, was also aimed at deterring a possible US attack on Iran. It ended then because the dangers of pursuing it had superseded its possible benefits. According to the memoir of former France Ambassador in Iran François Nicoulaud, a colleague of Rouhani told him that the Revolutionary Guards were in the process of building a bomb but that Rouhani had stopped them. In any case, the continuation of the nuclear crisis is caused above all by the regime’s needs to keep the country in the state of crisis. Thus far, the regime has been able to continue its fragile existence by inflicting a series of crises on the country. The most serious of these after the occupation of the American embassy were to prolong the Iran-Iraq war, making it the longest classic war in the 20th century, and now the current nuclear issue.
However, the Iranian regime’s policy of keeping the country in the state of crisis in order to control a simmering discontent could not have worked without its international counterparts, primarily the right-wing factions in Israel and neoconservatives in the US which are acting like ‘communicating vessels’. We can see their relation in the regime’s attempt to solve the nuclear issue, and in the possible normalization of relations between the two countries, which is strongly opposed by the Israeli government, neo-conservatives, the right-wing faction of the Republican Party, and radicals within Iran.
However, like previous crises, the Iranian regime always continues a crisis to a point beyond which it can no longer continue and ends up drinking the poison chalice of defeat (a term Khomeini used when agreeing to end the war with Iraq). We saw that in the hostage-taking crisis, in which the ruling clergy refused to make a deal with Jimmy Carter (which would have been highly beneficial for Iran) but eventually made a deal with Reagan, which apart from providing the international conditions for Iraq’s attack also economically cost the country around $30billion. They also refused to end the war with Iraq when the armed forces were victorious, and ended up in defeat, destroying a generation on mine fields and costing the country $1000billion. According to a European Union estimate, the current nuclear crisis has cost the country around $700billion. My estimate, which among other factors includes the theft of Iran’s oil and gas from shared fields in the Persian Gulf by despotic regimes in the region, is the mind blowing sum of $3200billion.
So Rouhani’s speech at the UN showed strong signs that they are finding themselves in the same situation again and that the country might have to pay a price for their disastrous policies. We can see this in the speech that was ratified by Iran’s supreme leader, which revealed a deeply embedded fear within the regime. In fact, it is so deeply embedded that they even failed to try to hide them. One of the fears expressed in the speech was the open admission that the sanctions were effective. Another fear was the admission that the factor of ‘time’ is working against them and this is why Rouhani said that he wants to reach a deal with 3-6 months and others talked about a year. The third fear was expressed when he described the regime as the ‘regional power’. This was an attempt to cover up the fact that the Iranian regime is not a ‘regional power’ but a ‘regional weakness’, since in order to maintain its current geo-political position in the region it has to take large amount of money from Iran’s impoverished economy (let’s not forget that the main cause of Iran’s current disastrous economical situation is not the result of sanctions but of sheer ineptitude in management as well as massive financial corruption by the Revolutionary Guards and other actors within military-financial mafia) and spend it on countries like Syria, Lebanon and etc. Russia and China are meanwhile exploiting Iran’s economic problems to their maximum advantage while letting small despotic kingdoms of Persian Gulf steal hundreds of billions of dollars of Iran’s oil and gas from shared fields.
The expression of these fears was accompanied by some major contradictions in his speech, interviews and deeds of his regime. For example, on the same day that he was proposing a project for a world against violence and speaking about toleration, seven people were executed in Iran( In fact since he took office the number of executions jumped and so far 213 people have been executed). His information minister, Alavi, stated that the “Islamic Republic does not want to imprison even one single person, so people have to regulate their action so the regime is not forced to imprison them”. In other words, he warns Iranians that in Iran there is no such a thing freedom of expression since any expression which is disliked by the regime will result in imprisonment. Or he chose Pour Mohamadi as his minister of Justice, who is one of the three judges who in 1988 ordered the execution of nearly 4000 prisoners within a few days. Furthermore, in his interviews and speeches we did not hear a single reference to human rights or the rights of citizens in Iran.
Furthermore, a few times he talked about prudence and hope without even making one suggestion in that regard. In fact, the only proposal he made about the project on violence and extremism showed that he had not even read the UN charter. If he had, he would know that the first objective of the UN is ‘to maintain international peace and security’, and hence there is no need for a new project – only the implementation of the charter. As a whole, Rouhani’s talks and interviews in New York showed that in Iran, foreign policy dictates domestic politics and not vice versa.
By phoning Obama, Rouhani tried to solve one of the contradictions. On the one hand, he could not ask him to replace the option of war on the table with the option of peace. But when Obama wanted to shake his hand as an offer of peace, he refused to do so. In Iran, he said that the suggestion of having a phone conversation was initiated by Obama’s office, but Obama’s office made the opposite claim. This has put him on the hot seat in Iran. Such a conflicting approach shows the main reason for inconsistencies in his speech and interviews as on some parts he makes requests from the US and talks about compromise and peace, but and on the other parts he protests and even takes aggressive tone. Why? Because he wants to please Obama as well as the Revolutionary Guards without violating Khamenei’s policy of ‘heroic flexibility’, thereby keeping different factions within the regime under control.
Will it work?
As I argued already, since the hostage crisis, the Iranian regime made the US into a linchpin of its domestic and international politics. To normalize relations with the US means that the regime would have to deprive itself of this linchpin, both domestically and internationally. However a faction within the leadership and rank and file of the regime equates such normalization with the end of the regime, so it will try to oppose it in any way it can. The danger to any deal comes from these internal and international actors who are working like ‘Communicating vessels’. It is here where the role of Khamenei and his strength and weakness within the regime to a large extent will determine the outcome of such a struggle. The nature and history of the regime tell us that the chances of normalizing relations between the two countries are not very high while the chances of reaching the deal over nuclear issue is within reach. Still, the media in both sides by providing amicable relation between the people of two countries and the desire for peace, hence making it difficult for the governments to go back to the previous hostile relation, can act as a catalyst, so normal relation can be established.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Global-Viewpoint/2013/1004/Expect-a-nuclear-deal-with-Iran-s-Rouhani-but-not-normal-ties-with-US
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/abolhassan-banisadr/after-rouhanis-un-speech-_b_4043645.html?utm_hp_ref=world
Since the 1979 Iranian revolution, the Iranian regime’s policy towards the US has been based on two principles: secret compromise and open confrontation. This began with the occupation of the American Embassy and subsequent hostage-taking in 1979, events which turned Iran-US relations into a defining factor of the regime’s domestic and international policies. At the time, with Khomeini’s consent, I and Jimmy Carter undersigned a scenario that would release the hostages. It was Khomeini himself who torpedoed the agreement in order to secretly negotiate with Ronald Reagan’s administration and to make sure Jimmy Carter would lose the election. This deal later became known as the ‘October Surprise’. While open confrontation continued on the surface, the countries’ secret relations led to another scandal in 1986, which came to be known as the ‘Iran-Contra’ affair.
Still, at times the Iranian regime had seriously tried to improve relations with the US. In fact, the dominant faction within the regime, which was led by Rafsanjani and Khamenei, were so keen to receive the American government’s support that according to the memoir of Ronald Reagan’s National Security Advisor, McFarlane, they suggested poisoning Khomeini in return.
On another occasion in 1995, Rafsanjani’s government suggested a deal to Bill Clinton’s government in which they would provide him with documents regarding the October Surprise, but Clinton refused. The last serious attempt before Rouhani’s election was made in 2003, when a comprehensive plan was developed by Mohammad Javad Zarif, the current foreign minister, Sadegh Kharazi, Iran’s former ambassador in France. This was approved by Khamenei and Khatami, the president at the time, who through a Swiss ambassador in Tehran presented Bush’s government with a comprehensive plan for dialogue and reaching agreement about all the issues which related to the two countries. Bush, who was still intoxicated by his initial success in Afghanistan and Iraq, disregard the letter.
So the current attempt is the latest serious one by the Iranian regime made to receive the US’s guarantee that it will not follow a policy of regime change. The regime’s attempt to build an atomic bomb, which according to a CIA report ended in 2003, was also aimed at deterring a possible US attack on Iran. It ended then because the dangers of pursuing it had superseded its possible benefits. According to the memoir of former France Ambassador in Iran François Nicoulaud, a colleague of Rouhani told him that the Revolutionary Guards were in the process of building a bomb but that Rouhani had stopped them. In any case, the continuation of the nuclear crisis is caused above all by the regime’s needs to keep the country in the state of crisis. Thus far, the regime has been able to continue its fragile existence by inflicting a series of crises on the country. The most serious of these after the occupation of the American embassy were to prolong the Iran-Iraq war, making it the longest classic war in the 20th century, and now the current nuclear issue.
However, the Iranian regime’s policy of keeping the country in the state of crisis in order to control a simmering discontent could not have worked without its international counterparts, primarily the right-wing factions in Israel and neoconservatives in the US which are acting like ‘communicating vessels’. We can see their relation in the regime’s attempt to solve the nuclear issue, and in the possible normalization of relations between the two countries, which is strongly opposed by the Israeli government, neo-conservatives, the right-wing faction of the Republican Party, and radicals within Iran.
However, like previous crises, the Iranian regime always continues a crisis to a point beyond which it can no longer continue and ends up drinking the poison chalice of defeat (a term Khomeini used when agreeing to end the war with Iraq). We saw that in the hostage-taking crisis, in which the ruling clergy refused to make a deal with Jimmy Carter (which would have been highly beneficial for Iran) but eventually made a deal with Reagan, which apart from providing the international conditions for Iraq’s attack also economically cost the country around $30billion. They also refused to end the war with Iraq when the armed forces were victorious, and ended up in defeat, destroying a generation on mine fields and costing the country $1000billion. According to a European Union estimate, the current nuclear crisis has cost the country around $700billion. My estimate, which among other factors includes the theft of Iran’s oil and gas from shared fields in the Persian Gulf by despotic regimes in the region, is the mind blowing sum of $3200billion.
So Rouhani’s speech at the UN showed strong signs that they are finding themselves in the same situation again and that the country might have to pay a price for their disastrous policies. We can see this in the speech that was ratified by Iran’s supreme leader, which revealed a deeply embedded fear within the regime. In fact, it is so deeply embedded that they even failed to try to hide them. One of the fears expressed in the speech was the open admission that the sanctions were effective. Another fear was the admission that the factor of ‘time’ is working against them and this is why Rouhani said that he wants to reach a deal with 3-6 months and others talked about a year. The third fear was expressed when he described the regime as the ‘regional power’. This was an attempt to cover up the fact that the Iranian regime is not a ‘regional power’ but a ‘regional weakness’, since in order to maintain its current geo-political position in the region it has to take large amount of money from Iran’s impoverished economy (let’s not forget that the main cause of Iran’s current disastrous economical situation is not the result of sanctions but of sheer ineptitude in management as well as massive financial corruption by the Revolutionary Guards and other actors within military-financial mafia) and spend it on countries like Syria, Lebanon and etc. Russia and China are meanwhile exploiting Iran’s economic problems to their maximum advantage while letting small despotic kingdoms of Persian Gulf steal hundreds of billions of dollars of Iran’s oil and gas from shared fields.
The expression of these fears was accompanied by some major contradictions in his speech, interviews and deeds of his regime. For example, on the same day that he was proposing a project for a world against violence and speaking about toleration, seven people were executed in Iran( In fact since he took office the number of executions jumped and so far 213 people have been executed). His information minister, Alavi, stated that the “Islamic Republic does not want to imprison even one single person, so people have to regulate their action so the regime is not forced to imprison them”. In other words, he warns Iranians that in Iran there is no such a thing freedom of expression since any expression which is disliked by the regime will result in imprisonment. Or he chose Pour Mohamadi as his minister of Justice, who is one of the three judges who in 1988 ordered the execution of nearly 4000 prisoners within a few days. Furthermore, in his interviews and speeches we did not hear a single reference to human rights or the rights of citizens in Iran.
Furthermore, a few times he talked about prudence and hope without even making one suggestion in that regard. In fact, the only proposal he made about the project on violence and extremism showed that he had not even read the UN charter. If he had, he would know that the first objective of the UN is ‘to maintain international peace and security’, and hence there is no need for a new project – only the implementation of the charter. As a whole, Rouhani’s talks and interviews in New York showed that in Iran, foreign policy dictates domestic politics and not vice versa.
By phoning Obama, Rouhani tried to solve one of the contradictions. On the one hand, he could not ask him to replace the option of war on the table with the option of peace. But when Obama wanted to shake his hand as an offer of peace, he refused to do so. In Iran, he said that the suggestion of having a phone conversation was initiated by Obama’s office, but Obama’s office made the opposite claim. This has put him on the hot seat in Iran. Such a conflicting approach shows the main reason for inconsistencies in his speech and interviews as on some parts he makes requests from the US and talks about compromise and peace, but and on the other parts he protests and even takes aggressive tone. Why? Because he wants to please Obama as well as the Revolutionary Guards without violating Khamenei’s policy of ‘heroic flexibility’, thereby keeping different factions within the regime under control.
Will it work?
As I argued already, since the hostage crisis, the Iranian regime made the US into a linchpin of its domestic and international politics. To normalize relations with the US means that the regime would have to deprive itself of this linchpin, both domestically and internationally. However a faction within the leadership and rank and file of the regime equates such normalization with the end of the regime, so it will try to oppose it in any way it can. The danger to any deal comes from these internal and international actors who are working like ‘Communicating vessels’. It is here where the role of Khamenei and his strength and weakness within the regime to a large extent will determine the outcome of such a struggle. The nature and history of the regime tell us that the chances of normalizing relations between the two countries are not very high while the chances of reaching the deal over nuclear issue is within reach. Still, the media in both sides by providing amicable relation between the people of two countries and the desire for peace, hence making it difficult for the governments to go back to the previous hostile relation, can act as a catalyst, so normal relation can be established.
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